Disclaimer: This is a review, and as such will contain opinions, spoilers and (often) general shit talking. (If you talk about what you don’t like about a work, you learn a lot. When you think through a work with the stakes presented to you by the creator, by the context of the work, you learn a lot. I review things, not because I love to dislike things, but because dislike contains rich and vital information for the process of experiencing something, but I cannot access it without interrogating it.) So, if you don’t want to have this thing spoiled for you, or don’t know how to behave when a person on the internet, that you don’t know, has opinions that don’t line up with yours, this review is not for you. It’s also not for the author/creator of the work. Please and thank you.
I’m re-watching this because I wanted something familiar, something acerbic, from someone as disgruntled with the world as me.
And it is the best thing I’ve watched in an utter age!
I still love Pretend It’s A City as much as I did the fist time around.
It’s a limited series about Fran Lebowitz, a writer, public speaker and fervid New Yorker, directed by Martin Scorsese (who’s constant chortling as he interviews Lebowitz really makes you feel like you’re in the room with two old friends just shooting the breeze).
Pretend It’s A City is almost a remake of Public Speaking, a 2010 film by Scorsese.
Pretend It’s A City is sharper and more on the point. The old, dramatic movie scores and historical footage tell a stronger story of New York via Lebowitz than Public Speaking does.
Pretend It’s A City paints Lebowitz in a better light, makes her funnier, whereas in Public Speaking she comes off more as obnoxiously opinionated and as someone who loves to hear herself talk (but not so funny to the viewer, even if the film crew often laughs).
The music and B-roll aren’t nearly as poignant as in Pretend It’s A City, where the story of New York is stronger, and perhaps it’s that framing of Lebowitz as almost synonymous with New York that works better.
The way Lebowitz talks about looking at the plaques on the street or about art installations on the subway, builds a compelling portrait of her.
Once you’ve seen Pretend It’s A City, Public Speaking feels like a prototype.
Through her sarcasm, Lebowitz expresses a lot of opinions that are unsavoury by modern (looking at you Gen Z) standards. Some of her attitudes are self-admittedly archaic, but that’s part of the charm.
In this day and age we’re so obsessed with not hearing or listening to people we disagree with, it’s downright refreshing from an American to be so acerbic and straightforward, unworried about offending someone. Because, ultimately, you can only offend those who have decided that they’re going to be offended.
‘. . . if people disagree with me, so what? I’ve never understood why [my opinions] anger people. I have no power, I’m not the mayor of New York, I’m not making laws. These are just opinions!’
— Fran Lebowitz in an interview for The Guardian
Even so, Lebowitz is intimately aware with privilege and advantage (and the lack thereof), and through her voicing these opinions she’s opening up the avenue for true conversations to be had.
She has an incredibly cynical view of America (and by extension the world and people in general I’d imagine, though she speaks less of that), but considering what she’s lived through, it’s not surprising.
The charm with Lebowitz is her confidence. She’s opinionated and she likes it that way.
It’s like having an irate old nan, which is such a comfort when you’ve lost your own nan or never had a very close relationship in the first place. Such as in my case, where my nan’s whole life was overshadowed by the grief of being a war refugee that she only moved past late in life.
Watching Fran Lebowitz navigate New York and listening to her talk about the love/hate relationship she has with it is funny and relatable. Having lived in a big city like NYC, I felt much the same way about big city life as she does.
I also agree with her on the point that if sitting on the couch and reading things would be a job, I’d love that job.
I don’t particularly love how she seems to define high art as paintings by Picasso and the like, but listening to how she’s known a lot of famous people in the arts, it doesn’t surprise me (she has a particular distaste for Warhol).
She does also make the point that when a Picasso was being sold at auction, the audience clapped when it was sold, but not when it came out, which seemed backwards to her.
But, as she says, that’s the kind of world we live in, where we applaud the record sale price but not the artwork itself. (Scorsese casting her as the judge in The Wolf Of Wall Street was an inside joke between old friends.)
While I don’t think this series is going to get a season two (one can always hope), the seven episodes already there are infinitely re-watchable and don’t get old just because you’ve seen it before.
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